Quick Guide to Bash Shell Scripting

Shell scripting is wildly useful and a powerful way to manipulate a lot of files and to automate behind-the-scenes tasks in Mac OS X. This guide is intended for Linux users but the Bash shell is also used in Mac OS X, and as far as I can tell everything in this bash shell scripting guide works the same across the two platforms. Before checking out the guide you might want to check what shell you are using in Mac OS X by typing the following in the Mac Terminal:

echo $SHELL

Something like /bin/bash or /bin/tcsh will be reported back to you, obviously this Bash scripting guide only works for the Bash shell. If you need to, you can change the default shell rather easily in the Terminal preferences, but Bash has been the default shell since 10.3 and continues to be in Snow Leopard.

LinuxHelp: 10 second guide to Bash Shell Scripting

If you’re looking for more, a much more advanced and complete guide to Bash scripting is available here:

Advanced Bash Scripting Guide

And if you really want to dive into shell scripting, a good book like Pro Bash Programming: Scripting the GNU/Linux Shell will do you wonders.